| Iowans got a brief respite from candidates on Monday thanks to heavy snowfall that canceled several town hall events; power outages also helped some residents avoid relentless TV and radio ads. Lucky! |
| In today's somewhat Iowa-centric edition of For the Record, we look at a few of yesterday's event cancellations, and why candidates are spending more in New Hampshire than Iowa. If you want For the Record to arrive in your inbox six days a week, like clockwork, you can sign up here. Let's dive in! |
| Snow-win situation |
| Campaigning nearly ground to a halt in Iowa on Monday as a snowstorm dumped half a foot of snow on the state. The question for candidates, especially the ones trailing in the polls: Keep all your appointments, or wait out the storm? |
| Marco Rubio's campaign eliminated one of six town hall meetings this week; the next five, beginning today, will be alongside fellow U.S. senator and Tea Party figure Trey Gowdy. Chris Christie, climbing in the polls in New Hampshire but stuck in neutral in Iowa, scrapped two town hall events. On the other hand, Martin O'Malley kept a Monday appointment where he met with five potential caucusgoers and several floral-print chairs. But if he managed to win over those five voters and a few of those chairs ... yeah, he probably still has lots of work to do. |
| Cash rules everything around somewhere else |
| Big money continues not to do what everyone was expecting this election cycle: propel the richest candidates to the top of the hill. Super PACs - the organizations that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support their favored candidates - haven't really moved the needle in Iowa . One-third of the money spent so far has gone to candidates that are no longer in the race (i.e., Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham), and another one-third has gone to Jeb Bush, who is drawing a little less than 5% in the Hawkeye State. (But let's face it, Jeb Bush's super PAC has a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin worth of campaign cash, and they have to spend it somewhere.) |
| Elsewhere, campaigns have spent nearly $10 million more in New Hampshire than in Iowa . Part of the reason is that it's more expensive to buy airtime on Boston's airwaves (which cover the Granite State) than it is to buy airtime in Des Moines. Another significant factor is that several of the establishment GOP candidates - Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, George Pataki and Marco Rubio - are making their case in fiscally conservative New Hampshire rather than socially conservative Iowa. |
| On another note, we tip our caps to whoever named one of Marco Rubio's PACs "Baby Got PAC." |
| Libertarians, socialists singing "Kumbayah" over Bernie |
| Talk to a libertarian true believer long enough (warning: do not do this) and eventually they'll get around to telling you how free-market competition would improve everything up to and including the fire department. So why are some libertarians getting excited about Bernie Sanders , who's planning a government takeover of the health care industry? "Maybe it's like, I like the non-establishment candidate," said one New Hampshire libertarian. |
| In the Venn diagram of political belief systems, there is a fair amount of overlap between Sanders' democratic socialism and libertarian ideals, including military non-intervention, privacy and the legalization of marijuana. For those libertarians who find it implausible that John McAfee or another libertarian candidate can win it all, voting for Sanders may be a glass-half-full move. But while we're talking about implausibility, we want to know more about this guy who wants to see a Sanders-Donald Trump ticket. |
| More from the campaign trail |
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| Oh man, they had crossword puzzles |
| Take it back to the days of Web 1.0 with web pages for Dole-Kemp '96 and Clinton-Gore '96. Actual quote: "Below you will find a brief presentation about the Clinton Administration and education using the latest version of Shockwave to present dynamic photographs synchronized to streaming audio." Sounds fancy! |
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